In the past, many designs have been developed for mounting a tooth onto an adapter. In most applications, the tooth contains a wedge-shaped socket at the rear of the tooth, and the adapter has a nose with a corresponding shape to receive the tooth. Teeth and adapters of this type are illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 2,915,290, issued Dec. 1, 1959 to G. Petersen; U.S. Pat. No. 3,079,710, issued Mar. 5, 1963 to P. Larsen et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 3,774,324, issued Nov. 27, 1973 to G. Lafond; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,013,130, issued Mar. 22, 1977 to L. Wirt et al.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,335,532, issued Jun. 22, 1982, to F. Hahn, et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 4,404,760, issued Sep. 20, 1983 to F. Hahn, et al. each teach another approach to connecting the tooth to the adapter. Each of the above-noted patents teach having raised threads on the adapter nose while having corresponding mating grooves in the socket of the tooth. The concept illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,335,532 has been commercially used and requires that the tooth be rotated as it is being assembled onto the adapter. The rotation of the tooth during assembly is necessary since the adapter nose has four raised helical threads disposed thereon and the socket of the tooth has helical grooves to receive, in load bearing contact, the raised helical threads on the adapter. Since the tooth has to be rotated during assembly, it necessarily has to be rotated in the reverse direction during disassembly. The need to rotate the tooth during disassembly can oftentimes create a problem since, during operation, fine dirt particles become packed in the socket of the tooth between the tooth and the adapter. When the fine dirt particles become packed between the raised helical threads and the corresponding helical grooves, it becomes more difficult to remove the tooth from the adapter. This difficulty is generally attributed to the need to rotate the tooth relative to the adapter.
It is desirable to provide a tooth arrangement that permits the tooth to be assembled and disassembled onto an adapter having raised helical threads without having to rotate the tooth during assembly and/or disassembly and to eliminate corresponding load bearing grooves in the tooth.
The present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems as set forth above.